


Always True to You, Darling

by vifetoile



Series: Air Rebellion [1]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Coming of Age, F/F, F/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 18:25:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7279015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vifetoile/pseuds/vifetoile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knows, Air Nomads are chaste. Jinora, a little older now, studies in the Fire Nation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always True to You, Darling

_But I’m always true to you darling, in my fashion. Yes, I’m always true to you, darling, in my way_. – Air Nomads are chaste.

 

 Jinora fell in love a million times on paper before she ever met Kai. She knows that the old Airbenders did not swear marriage to one another, but the new Air Nation will be different, starting with her mother and father -- further back, starting with Aang and Katara and their love story of a lifetime. Jinora will be loving, and faithful, and true, and happy, and chaste.

But not just yet.

But that is the future, and in the present Jinora is eighteen, tall and solitary. She is studying in the Fire Nation Capitol, as the guest of Fire Lady Izumi.

Jinora had first met Fire Lady Izumi when she was five, and the two always liked one another. It only took one meeting for them to recognize their kinship – the serious, quiet ones; the ones most aware of their responsibility to their nation. In short, they were the oldest sisters. In a thank-you note to Tenzin and Pema, Izumi had added that Jinora was welcome to the Fire Nation should she ever wish to live or study there. That offer was not made lightly. Jinora wrote to Izumi to thank her for the offer, and the two became pen-pals.

After her eighteenth birthday, Jinora flew to the Fire Nation to finally accept the invitation.

Her heart was light. She was sad to leave her life in Republic City – her family, and Korra and Asami, and, well, she missed Kai, but it was also nice to be apart from him. She had gotten a little sick of destiny, after all this time.

She passed a month in the Palace, Izumi’s guest and the star of the court. Being the center of attention had never come easily to her, though. She was happy to move into ordinary dormitories at the University of Kindling. There, she delighted in academia, philosophy, and the like-minded intellectuals around her. She missed Kai, but that was what letters were for. And she hadn’t been wrong about herself: she hadn’t breathed so free in years. Being away from all that responsibility, all the scrutiny, the feeling that her future was already written and wasn’t particularly wide… It took her some time to realize where her eyes lingered, and where her thoughts strayed, and what it was she had really wanted, why she truly resented Kai’s companionship.

Jinora wanted to fall in love, she wanted love that came in more varieties than at-first-sight, all-my-life, never-thought-of-another.

Yes, those are the words that described Gran Gran’s marriage to Avatar Aang, but on this point, Jinora resents destiny. By the four winds, love is meant to be a many splendor’d thing, isn’t it? So who could blame her for seeking out more?

The first summer holiday found her wandering the countryside, telling herself that she’s searching for enlightenment, covering her arrows like her grandfather before her.

There’s more to education than books, though. Jinora fell in love. She fell in love with minds, she fell in love with bodies, she fell in love with souls.

While she looked forward to a lifetime of fidelity with Kai, she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life wondering. She wanted to learn. To learn is to touch, to hear, to taste and to hold. Girls and boys, scholars and fighters, wise and foolish, all briefly, briefly, like moths to a flame, briefly but passionately.


End file.
